Project for the day: Cushion for reading

I really wanted to be sure you had something to read today, so I did a project that my husband has been dropping hints in the hopes of me doing it for quite some time.

You see we have a 2 year old daughter who we read a chapter of a book to every night at bedtime since she was born and 99% of the time that reading falls to my husband. We've read the The Wind in the Willows, Frog and Toad Are Friends, The Complete Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Anne of Green Gables (all 9 books), and a vast variety of the American Girl books (Kit, Samantha, Felicity, Kirsten, Addy, and Molly thus far). It's my husband's favorite part of the day. The part he wanted to change (you may be wondering) was sitting on the floor. So he had requested a cushion to sit on for our daughter's room.

I had some left over fabric from the brown chair I had upholstered for our daughter's room, but not enough to do a cushion, but I also had some nice, sturdy, very light gray home decor fabric that would work for the cushion itself. I decided to use the brown suede for piping along the edges. If you've never made piping (I hadn't before) it's actually quite simple. It requires a special sewing machine foot (called a cording foot) and it turns out I had one (yipee)! All you do it fold the fabric around the cord and butt the foot right up next to it (allowing the foot to run right up next to it. I used a thick twine I had on hand for the piping itself and it looked perfect.

Once I had made the piping, I used the same foot I attached the piping to the right side of the fabric (please note, at this point I wish I would have decided on a round cushion. Corners are not fun). The piping was attached to both the top and bottom edges of the cushion and then I sewed the sides onto it still using the cording foot to ensure that the edge got as close as possible to that piping. I let the siding overlap slightly so I would have material to sew together to close off the cushion once it was done, but I made sure to sew around the entire cushion so everything would be nice and snug. and then flipped it right side out (see the picture at right once the edge was sewn on).

At this point I stuffed it using fiber fill and then sewed the opening shut.
I stuffed it pretty firmly so it would be keep it's shape for a longer time and not take a beating after being sat on for a long time.

I was contemplating screen-printing the actual fabric (which I may do at some point, but I wanted to use it this evening, so I guess if I do, I'll save that for another blog post).

Here it is being tested by a cute little girl who took some time out from dancing to ensure it worked well. I'm pretty sure hubby will love it. My daughter sure does!

 PS -You know what's tough about doing crafts...I take pictures of the nice things I make, but I have to stare at the stuff I want to fix that I don't have the expertise to tackle. For example, I can't wait till I can replace that carpet! It's definitely seen better days!

If you want to donate, so you don't have to stare at it in my pictures, I would be sure to make you something in return! You know, if you've been just trying to figure out what to do with a pile of cash lying about or something :)